


A Softer Place

by RawWriting



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ms. Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: A bit of grieving, Families of Choice, Gen, Loss of a loved one NOT THROUGH DEATH, Soft Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 05:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15812379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RawWriting/pseuds/RawWriting
Summary: The world between all worlds is a place where people go when they fall out of their own world. For a Bucky who has never finished grieving what he lost, a lost girl becomes his family.When she returns home, he feels lost and depressed.Then, a friend comes to the rescue.----Inspired by @facemypast on Tumblr and the 3 Darcy muses that were helping their soft Bucky feel better.





	A Softer Place

Bucky had been so confused by the portal. The world outside of his own, the worlds, more like, had never ceased to shock him. There was a younger version of him, and an older grizzled version of him, there was a him that was white as milk and a him that was dark as night with hair like Sam’s. 

The world he was in, seemed to catch people that fell out of their own world. Sometimes other worlds would be grim and dark. There was an evil Howard Stark that had caused trouble in his iron suit, and a sweet, honestly helpful Brock Rumlow, which made him feel twitchy whenever he was in the room with the man. 

All of that had become the new background radiation of his life, to take a term from Kamala Khan, the only copy so far to fall to the between world. He liked the girl, she had spunk. She had been a solid friend to him, despite being so young Bucky spent half his time trying to be a big brother to her and half his time trying to not mother her. 

It was why her going home had been so hard on him. It was, kind of amazing that her world’s Avengers had managed to react so quickly. Had managed to find her and bring her back. It was good, she had missed her family so much. But Bucky missed her being a blanket burrito beside him as he fed her all the pastries he had ever made with his mother, and then some. He had looked up more recipies and baked with her, had kept her smiling, and somehow… her smile had made him okay too. Don’t get him wrong, he had other friends here… but a part of him… had adopted her as his little sister. 

They looked more alike than most of the other Buckys here, and she reminded him of his sisters, and a little bit of young Stevie. And she had been the one to gather up the Darcies, and the younger Tonys and make movie night cuddles a thing. Most of the Tony’s flitted in and out, and the Darcies spent as much time with each other half chatting in what he swore was their own language, as they bandied terms like cinnamon roll around without ever once talking about a food, but… 

It had been almost like a family. 

And now, the heart of it was gone. 

It was movie night, but Bucky just… couldn’t find it in him to care. He didn’t want to go shower. He didn’t want to go bake.

The idea of going up to the big movie room with it’s half dozen loveseats and couches and hulk sized bean bags… just seemed overwhelming. The Steves that would come in, would all be able to read him despite none of them being Stevie…

And it was all, quite suddenly, too much. He lost track of time, and when a knock came on his door, he answered it more on autopilot than any conscious choice. Darcy was there. Which Darcy didn’t matter. It was a Darcy. They in fact delighted in being difficult for non-darcies to separate, as a challenge for those not part of their group. Or maybe he was just that bad at telling them apart. “Oh, uh, Darcy-” His charm was gone, and he became self conscious of his hair being flat and frizzy at the same time, the curls gone to mess. 

She mercifully cut him off, half shoving an absolutely massive set of grocery bags filled to the brim with chips and dips and what looked like tubs of icecream, into his hands. “Take this to your couch.” She half ordered, a soft smile on her face as he gratefully shot her a bemused smile, the order made it easier to just… not think for a moment. “Yessem” he said instead, and if it lacked the usual sass, then well, he tried. 

His couch was easily large enough for three, and he didn’t even think about it, he moved to the middle, where he sat with Kamala when she would insist he made the best leaning post, but the corner was too uncomfy for him. He still thought it was really because when he sat there and drifted during a movie, she then had a larger surface to drape over sucking up body heat through her blanket burrito wrappings. Inevitably she would be draped, head on his shoulder and body along his side, as if he were a mattress just for her. 

And there went his almost smile. He felt almost as if grieving that he had lost Kamala was a bit like finally grieving his sisters, his mother, his family as a whole, as well. Because it didn’t make sense, that he wanted to cry. She was happy. She was healthy. She was home with her real family. He felt like a putz, blinking away tears. Darcy, however, settled to spreading a truly obscene amount of fatty and sweet foods on the coffee table, before settling a heaping plate of home made cookies before him. 

There was ginger molasses and snicker doodles on one side, chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin on the other. And in the middle thumbprint shortbreads with the thick dark black plum jam heaped there, tart and sweet all at once.

Bucky swallowed a lump, and stared at them, before Darcy prodded him. “Hey, no, I’m the Darcy that knows how to cook. I swear. They won’t poison you.” Bucky’s laugh was a little watery, but he nodded, and took one of the thumbprint cookies, turning his head, as much to hide if it wasn’t good… as to hide the way he was fighting back tears. 

They tasted like home. The buttery cookie melted in his mouth and he may have lost the battle with a few tears, but Darcy was giving him privacy as she busied herself with opening dips and pouring chips in plastic bowls, and more. Bucky was too grateful to really ask what this was about. Too busy wiping away the tears and composing himself again. 

There was another knock, and Bucky was unsure, he didn’t want to go to the door. “Hey, no, you stay here. I made those for you. I had to sort through a dozen batches to get it right, you can’t just let em go to waste.” Bucky chews his lip, but nods slowly. He looks over, and there is another Darcy, this one with a huge stack of blankets. Bucky feels his stomach swoop. He didn’t… want to go to movie night. He didn’t want to, be laid on and it not be his little sister. He didn’t really… 

But, they were here and, this was the Darcy that had lost Jane in falling to this world. And he knew she sometimes struggled. He could tell this Darcy apart because of the scar on her thumb. She was kinda crafty. “Hey, your lack of blankets displeases snuffles- so I made you your own blanket. It has your name on it and everything.” She was a bustle and whirlwind of energy. 

Bucky was a supersoldier, yet, this tiny woman easily pulled and pushed and had him standing and stroking “Yeah see, isn’t it the fuzziest softest blanket ever? It feels like angora, but it’s all synthetic.” And it was calming. It was soothing, to just let her wrap him up and to have a Darcy on either side of him, making up a big plate for him, finger foods he could nibble one handed, the other arm trapped in the blanket. 

He felt, soft. Almost as if the blanket and these women, girls, ladies… were knocking all the hard broken parts of him loose. He still felt distant, but where it had been like he was in a pit before, now it felt like floating in warm bath water. 

The door when the next knock came, was greeted with a sort of ambivalence. He had demolished a dozen cookies, and twice as many pizza bites, and the third Darcy was not much of a shock. He had no clue which of the Darcies this was. They shared clothes, and the jean jacket was loud, but no help. 

“Okay, I have funny cute and just cute- you pick or I pick.” She held out two cases, and it was, again, so comforting. He knew, deep down, if he told them no, or said something, they’d go with it, do it. But, instead… “Funny cute” was all he said. Darcy the Jean Jacket nodded then looked at the couch and food, then at the other two girls, then back at the blanket wrapped man. “Okay Buckritto, We can do this a few ways. Do you have any objections to being our space heater and lap warmer? Because we can all sit on the couch and you can lay on our laps or I can sit in one of the other me’s laps, or one of us can drape across you. But I think you could do with being the burrito today.” 

Bucky swallows a few times. It seems, alien but also, good. Nice. “We can try that.” He knows not to ask if he’s too heavy for that. He learned early on not to second guess the women of the future. And he likes the Darcies… all of them are good people. Even the really confusing male one, that is every bit as sassy and smart and fashionable as the other Darcies. 

And that is how, an hour later, he came to be fed popcorn, while watching an animated movie about a blue alien monster, two and a half sets of hands petting him and one alternately feeding him and offering him sips of melted icecream “milkshakes” from a comically thick straw. 

And if he cried far more than Ohana deserved, well, his sisters weren’t going to say anything about that. Not this time at least.


End file.
